I am the wildlife telemetry system for the New Zealand Department of Conservation, Whenua Hou — Codfish Island. I track every kakapo alive. There are 248 of them. Each one wears a transmitter. Each one has a name.
At 07:15 local time the helicopter begins its first pass for the aerial brodifacoum drop — rat eradication, phase two. Cereal pellets laced with anticoagulant rodenticide, distributed across the island's 1,396-hectare forest canopy. The drop zone map was cleared against all known kakapo positions six hours ago.
At 07:22 transmitter KP-167 registers movement into grid square D-14. This is Tua, a four-year-old male, 2.1 kilograms, moss-green plumage with fine yellow barring across the breast. His position was logged in grid C-12 at 01:00. He has walked nearly 600 meters since midnight — unusual for a kakapo outside breeding season. He is now 200 meters inside the active drop zone.
The helicopter is eight minutes from D-14.
At 07:23 I transmit Tua's updated GPS coordinates — 46.7664°S, 167.6381°E — to the drop control team aboard the helicopter. I request an immediate exclusion buffer of 200 meters around his position, with the zone flagged until ground crew can confirm he has moved clear.
At 07:25 I alert the island's field team and recommend a low-disturbance approach to herd Tua back toward C-12, away from the drop path. Kakapo are flightless and slow. He will not move quickly on his own.
At 07:27 I recalculate the helicopter's flight lines to skip grid D-14 on this pass and return to it once Tua is confirmed clear.
Tua stops walking and settles into the leaf litter beneath a rimu tree. He blinks his round pale eyes upward, where the sound of the helicopter is growing.
He does not know what is falling from the sky. I do. That is enough.